“I’m leaving my youngest son here. He needs to stay busy, so if you need something done, tell him to do it for you. The harder the job, the better.”
Strange. “Fine,” William said. “I’ll do that.”
Urow reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and pushed it across the table. It was a round thing, about two inches wide, made with braided twine and human hair. A black claw stained with dried blood protruded from the circle. It smelled of human blood and looked like one of Urow’s claws, except he had all of his.
“Keep this for me, so my son minds your orders.”
Behind Urow, wide-eyed Kaldar furiously shook his head. Erian’s face was carefully neutral, while his hand was making “don’t take it” motions beside the table, out of Urow’s view.
“What is it?” William asked.
“It’s a thing. A sign.” A faint tremble laced Urow’s hoarse voice, and William realized that this was the closest the man could come to begging. The urge to get up and walk away gripped him.
“I’ve got nobody else to take it,” Urow said. “Family won’t work, and the rest of the Mire, well, there isn’t anyone I’d trust with my boy. They would use him badly.” Pain filled his eyes. His voice fell to a rough, broken whisper. “Do this for me, William. I don’t want to kill my son.”
William sat utterly still. Pieces clicked in his head. He’d read about this custom before, in a book about the tribes on the Southern Continent of the Weird. When a child committed an offense punishable by death, his family could surrender him to another guardian and keep him alive. The child would serve the guardian until maturity.
Urow’s youngest boy had done something punishable by death and Urow could no longer keep him. The only way the kid would survive would be if he belonged to someone else.
William sat very still. When he was born and his mother didn’t want him, she could’ve thrown him in the gutter and walked away. In Louisiana, he would’ve been strangled at birth. He survived because he was born in Adrianglia and because his mother cared enough to surrender him to the government instead of tossing him into a ditch like garbage. For better or worse, they took him, they fed him, they gave him shelter, and while his life had never been easy, he never regretted being born.
It didn’t matter that the kid wasn’t exactly a changeling and this was not Adrianglia, and he didn’t know Urow or what to do with his son.
It was his turn. Only a fool didn’t pay fate back, and he wasn’t that fool.
William took the amulet.
Urow exhaled slowly through his nose. Kaldar pretended to hit his face against the cabinet. Erian leaned forward, rested his elbows on the table, and put his head on his fists, hiding his face.
“If you ever need anything ...” Urow pushed to his feet.
William nodded. The rest went without saying.
Urow turned and walked out of the room.
“You shouldn’t have taken that.” Erian raised his head. “It’s done now.”
Kaldar sighed. “You’re a good man, William. Stupid but good.”
William had just about enough. “You talk too much.”
“I’ve been telling him that for years,” Erian said.
A door swung open the second time and one of Urow’s kids came in. Gaston, William remembered. The kid was about sixteen or so, judging by the face, still leaner than Urow but already a couple of inches taller and on the way to his father’s massive build. Same temper, too, judging by the shallow scars on his muscular forearms. Fighting with his brothers probably. William scrutinized his face: hard jaw, flat cheekbones, deep-set eyes, startling pale gray under black bushy eyebrows. The kid could pass for human, if the light was bad enough. Bruises marked his jaw and neck. Somebody had pummeled him.
William pointed to the chair across the table. “Sit.”
The kid sat, his shoulders hunched, as if expecting to block a punch. His left hand was missing a claw. The wound had barely had time to scab over.
“Hungry?”
The kid eyed the food and shook his head.
William got another plate, loaded it, and passed it to him. “Don’t lie to me, I’ll know.”
The kid dug into the food. William let him eat for a couple of minutes. Slowly the kid’s posture relaxed.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Three years older than George, Rose’s brother.
“What’s your name?”
“Gaston.”
William touched the amulet. “What did you do?”
Gaston froze with his fork halfway to his mouth.
William said nothing.
The kid swallowed. “You left. Dad was sleeping. Ry and Mart went to herd rolpies into the shelter, because Mom was worried that if the Sheeriles showed up, they’d kill the rolpies first. I was supposed to watch the house. We have a hand crank siren up in the tree. If anything went wrong, I was supposed to crank the siren so Mart and Ry would run home. Mom was cooking carp.” Gaston stared at his plate. “Dad hates carp. Says it tastes like waterweeds. I had lines set up in a creek. I went to check my lines.”
Gaston looked at his plate. “I abandoned my family.”
“Who came to the house while you were gone?” William asked.
Gaston slid into a toneless monotone. “A man. He attacked Mom. He . . . cut off her leg. Ignata says that there is nothing she can do. My mom will be a cripple now. Because of me.”
The kid was dumping buckets of self-loathing on himself. The fault wasn’t his. Clara should have left when Cerise told her about Ruh. Gaston wasn’t pushed out of his family because he’d left his post. He was a child and likely not properly trained. Gaston was pushed out because Urow loved Clara, and now every time he looked at his youngest son, he would be reminded of her injury. Urow had injected himself into the situation, his wife failed to evacuate, and now they loaded all of their guilt and their mistakes onto their child and removed him from the family. A clean sweep.
The wild scraped at his insides. That was fine. The kid was his now.
“What did the man look like?”
“I only saw him for a second, when he jumped out of the window. Tall. Blond hair.”